Silicon Valley Cast As Bush Country / McCain appears to be underdog

MARK SIMON

Published
4:00 am PST, Thursday, February 24, 2000

2000-02-24 04:00:00 PDT PENINSULA -- Backers of Texas Gov. George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination are planning a "rally in the valley" tonight in Palo Alto to demonstrate his GOP support among Silicon Valley leaders.

Bush won't be at the Palo Alto event. Instead, he'll be represented by a wealth of industry leaders -- a group of people who urged him to run nine months ago and have been sending mass e-mails touting the governor's record on key issues and criticizing that of his rival, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Floyd Kvamme, the venture capitalist who has spearheaded the Silicon Valley effort for Bush, has sent e-mails throughout the country asserting that McCain's positions on tort reform, taxing the Internet and raising taxes on employee stock options "are not very well thought out."

Other industry leaders have circulated their own e-mails declaring McCain would be a "disaster for the high-tech industry."

While all this is activity is going on for Bush, nothing remotely similar is taking place on McCain's behalf. Industry insiders say a recent e- mail call for support for McCain, circulated to more than 300 key figures, elicited not a single affirmative response.

Of the more than 100 industry executives who urged Bush to run -- some of high tech's most influential names, including Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers, Applied Materials CEO Jim Morgan and discount brokerage entrepreneur Charles Schwab -- not one has defected to McCain, said valley sources.

"Bush has the who's who," said one source. "There's nothing happening for McCain. There's no traction."

But the question is whether McCain will find his own traction among the Silicon Valley voters and make do without the key opinion leaders, as he appears to have done in other state primary elections.

Silicon Valley is supposed to be a different political setting -- independent, suspicious of the old hierarchy and issue-driven.

The result is an electorate that would seem to be up for grabs.

Traditional major players in politics, such as labor, agriculture, automakers or the entertainment industry, are "naturally aligned with a particular party or a particular ideology," Jeff Modisett, head of the Democratic arm of TechNet, the industry's political clearinghouse, said in an appearance on the local cable talk show "Peninsula This Week."

"I don't think that's true when it comes to Silicon Valley. . . . It's very policy driven, not party driven. So we have issues for both candidates, and our members switch, depending on where particular candidates are on any given issue."

Lezlee Westine, Modisett's Republican counterpart, concurred that "people are so independent- minded. You're not going to have one or two bosses, if you will, anointing a candidate."

But in the race between McCain and Bush, Silicon Valley workers may be faced with a choice between the anointed Texas governor and the Arizona outsider.

Bush clearly is the Silicon Valley insider.

He has raised more than $1 million from the industry, a huge improvement over the $120,000 Bob Dole raised when he was the GOP presidential nominee four years ago.

Bush has benefited from the strong connection between Silicon Valley and Austin, Texas, a high- tech mecca in its own right. A daily nonstop flight from San Jose to Austin has been nicknamed the "nerd bird."

"He's with the industry philosophically," said one source. "McCain is not."

But McCain recently said he raised more than $2 million in donations over the Internet.

"He's done a great job of presenting himself as someone who knows how to use high tech for his own campaign," said Westine.

And if there is a streak of independence that runs through the workers in Silicon Valley, clearly McCain is positioned to attract those who think independence is more important than being philosophically aligned with the industry leadership.

How will it turn out?

Bush is conceded to be far ahead of McCain in Silicon Valley. Bush has been far ahead of McCain in other places, such as Michigan, and that lead has evaporated.

Perhaps the key indicator lies in the unique nature of Silicon Valley -- where most employees also are shareholders in their own companies. They think of themselves as partners in the enterprise, and not just low-ranking partners. Today's software engineer could be tomorrow's startup CEO.

The perceived distance between the chairman of General Motors and the assembly line worker simply doesn't exist at many Silicon Valley companies.

For all the self-assigned independence that is supposed to be an essential component of the high-tech persona, there are common interests shared by Silicon Valley executives and workers alike.

A candidate who demonstrates an understanding and a commitment to the issues that make up those common interests is likely to do well in Silicon Valley, from top to bottom.